When The Future Isn't Bright
by NoSecretsHere
Summary: It was silly of us all to think that our lives would end up exactly the way we wanted them too. Record deals don't just happen, you don't get second chances at an audition, and your dream career isn't always a dream. Lessons have to be learned the hard way, that way history won't be repeated. Those lessons have been learned now, and they will never be forgotten.


Author's Note: Ryan Murphy said he graduated the glee members from high school to make the show believable. However there are a lot of thing he did that are even less believable than keeping them in high school would have been. That is what this story is about, about five young adults actually dealing with the real world. A world where record deals and broadway shows don't land in their laps.

Yes the story includes Finn's death, but that isn't the main idea at all. It's just a plot point to get the story rolling.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

/

_It was silly of us all to think that our lives would end up exactly the way we wanted them too. We all had big plans for ourselves, things we wanted to accomplish. That would have been normal, if it hadn't been for how we expected to get it._

_New Directions had given us this false view of rewards. Every time we worked hard, we would get rewarded. Sue let us keep Glee Club, we made it to Nationals, we won Nationals. Life had been accommodating in those three years. Why wouldn't it be like that forever?_

_Like I said it was silly of us to have that kind of mind set. Sometimes no matter how hard you work, you don't get an award. There won't always be a way around a mistake you made. Justification will not always get you out of trouble. _

_Had we known that when we graduated, maybe things would be different. Maybe, we would be entirely different people. We would have completely different, better really, lives. That's what we all try to think, but I think we all know the truth. _

_Naïveté can't be stopped with words. Lessons have to be learned the hard way, that way history won't be repeated._

_Those lessons have been learned now, and they will never be forgotten. It all started during that dreadful week, when we all slowly learned the news. Tragedy starting the turmoil of further tragedy. _

/

**Rachel**

"Hello. I'm Rachel Berry, and I'm calling to inquire about a job opening you have,"

"I don't have any experience in teaching, but I did lead my high school glee club to a national win,"

"Hello?"

"Damn it!"

Rachel snapped the phone shut. With a snarl she threw it at the ratty couch in the corner of her living room. That had been the tenth rejection today. The twentieth if you counted the ones from the rest of the week.

What had happened to her bright future? Rachel Berry was supposed to be somebody and do something with her life. God damn it, her name should have been up in lights. Flowers delivered to her dressing room every night. Reviews of her brilliant Broadway skills in every newspaper.

That was how her life should have ended up!

If only she hadn't choked during her audition for NYADA. If she had just performed perfectly the way she usually did, her life wouldn't be this way.

There would be more than four pieces of furniture in her apartment, more food than spaghetti in the fridge, and better clothing than the Salvation Army hand me downs she had on. Better yet, there would be money in her useless wallet.

Oh money. Money, Rachel had come to realize, made the world go round. You could do anything with it, while without it you were unable to do even the simplest of things. How could she have ever taken her pampered life style for granted?

All those years of expensive dance classes, singing tutors, and acting coaches had cost money. Big money. Her fathers had expected with all the money they spent getting her prepared for her bright future, she could win a scholarship to whatever school she wanted. They had been wrong.

No scholarship ever came, how could it if the only damn school she had applied to hadn't accepted her?

Maybe, if she had applied for more schools.

That's what her life was made of now, wasn't it? Rachel's life was full of maybes. All the different paths and options that had been open to her two years ago. The ones she had been too stupid to take. The ones that left her sad, lonely, poor, and without any sight of a bright future.

Rachel Berry, the washed up Broadway star, before she even got on Broadway.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Rachel huffed. Who would be calling her? She didn't have any friends in the city. Another job calling to tell her, she hadn't gotten the position? It would have to be answered either way, so she best get it over now.

Bare feet shuffling against the unpolished wood flooring, Rachel walked to her beat up couch. Grabbing the flip phone-all she could afford-she threw it open.

"Hello?"

"Yes this is she,"

"Carol?"

"I'm sorry, what?

"WHAT?"

"You're lying. You have to be lying. You have to be!"

"How? How could he-"

"Oh my god,"

"Yes. Of course I will,"

"I'm so sorry,"

"Bye,"

Rachel felt her insides grow cold. It wasn't because of the lack of a heater in her apartment. The coldness grew from the information that Finn Hudson died. Her ex-fiancée, whom she had held out hope for all this time, had been shot and killed in Afghanistan.

There were no tears. The coldness froze any that could have fallen. All there was numbness. Numbness over the fact that Finn was dead. Finn wouldn't be coming back for her. Finn wouldn't be saving her from the horrible life she lived.

Now she was going to return to the town for the funeral, the town she had once been so desperate to leave. There she would face all the people that had once teased her for thinking she could be somebody. This would be where she finally proved them right.

Everyone would see what the failure she was.

Maybe if things had been different...

/

**Quinn**

The weight of the books, in her arms forced her body to bend forward. It gave Quinn the appearance of having a hunchback. Biting back, a moan she forced herself to move towards the library table she sat at. The steps she took were short and slow. She got there eventually though.

With a sigh, she dropped the four thick books on the table top. They made a loud thump sound that had other people around the library sending her ugly glares. That didn't bother her anymore, that wasted too much energy.

Everything wasted too much energy when it came to Yale students.

"You certainly know how to draw attention to us," Claire, her partner for the project, leaned over to whisper.

Quinn raised a brow at her. This was probably why the two of them didn't get along. Claire was the Ivy League poster girl. Modest, beautiful, from a rich family, and without a personality. The kind of girl Quinn had come to hate while studying at Yale.

"They'll live," Quinn shrugged.

Finally relieved from the books, she sat down in the chair across Claire. There were too many people in the library working on the project, so the heat was sweltering in their. It was because of that heat, that she peeled of her cardigan.

"What are you doing?!" Claire whispered, mortified.

"Taking off my sweater," Quinn replied, her tone bored.

"Put it back on!" Claire whispered furiously.

"It's hot," Quinn said in reply.

"You shouldn't be flaunting that!" Claire whispered angrily.

The red headed girl looked ready to have an aneurism the way she was pointing to Quinn's tattoo. It was something that happened quite often with the teachers and students at Yale. Apparently, tattoos of Ryan Secreast weren't accepted around here.

You would think that they would be used to it by now. Quinn made a habit of wearing spaghetti strap shirts, as her own form of rebellion against the school's ideals.

"Why not? It's not like it's going to go away," Quinn questioned.

"Because it's completely inappropriate that you got it in the first place!" Claire continued to rant.

Quinn rolled her eyes. This is the life she had subjected herself to when she decided to go to Yale. Two more years though and she would be free. That was what she was looking forward too.

Besides she only had herself to blame, she was the one who applied without touring the school. One look at the snooty tour guide and pretentious students, she would have ran the opposite direction.

Ring! Ring!

"Oh my god and you have your phone on in here!" Claire moaned.

Quinn pulled out her slinky IPhone, completely ignoring the other girl. The number was one that wasn't saved in her phone, but it had a Lima area code. Her mom had probably gotten a new phone.

"Hello," she answered it despite the glares piercing the back of her head.

"Carol?"

"What do you mean?"

"He what?"

"No. You can't be serious!"

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Carol,"

"I'll be there, I promise,"

"Goodbye,"

Quinn choked on a sob, as she pushed herself out of the library chair. Claire looked even more mortified when the chair fell back and hit the floor.

"What do you think you're doing?" Claire called after her.

Quinn ignored her, and she continued to run out of the library.

Finn had been killed in Afghanistan. The lovable idiot that had been the star of her high school drama saga, was dead. Pain sprung up in her chest.

Now, she would have to find a way to get a week off school. Someway it would have to happen, Finn deserved to have everyone he cared about-and who cared about him- at his funeral.

Yale be damned. There were some things more important.

/

**Puck**

"A full house suckers,"

Puck placed down his five cards with a smirk. The red colors of the letters stood out against the green of the table. The other men seated around it threw down their cards scowling.

It wasn't his fault, they didn't have luck on their side. Luck was all that mattered in gambling, luck you won or luck you didn't get caught cheating. Luck was something that Puck was foreign too for all of his life. Luck happened once every five years for him.

Luck got him to graduate from high school two years ago and that was the last time it had been seen. The fact that luck was rendering it's head for him in this game was enough for him to bow out gracefully. Didn't want to lose all his winnings.

"I'll be taking my money fellas," he announced, wrangling in all the dollar bills and small group of change.

This wasn't a professional gambling house. It was the lowest of the lows, in a drunk man's basement. All that participated agreed that poker chips weren't worth the money. You put down cash and cash alone.

Smirking at them, he stuffed the money into his pockets and stood up. That was about one hundred dollars, making up a third of what he had lost since he began to play with the group. Hopefully luck would still be with him tomorrow.

The men all nodded at him in goodbye. They didn't really speak to each other, Puck was usually the only one to add commentary to the games. He was the youngest player at the age of 20. The rest were well into their 40's or 60's.

He walked up the stairs and exited through the front door whistling to himself. Puck still lived at home, so it would only be a three block walk to his bed and some cartoons.

For all the bullshit Beiste and Schuester fed him, he didn't go on and do great things. Living in Lima, working at Burt's shop, that all added to his growing list of Lima Loser characteristics.

All he needed now was a growing beer belly and a receding hairline. Now that he spent his time with the town drunks and let his Mohawk grow out, both were both strong possibilities.

It was a miracle he even graduated from high school with the rest of his class. Hell, maybe if he hadn't graduated he would have least had something to do. Being a four time senior would have been a lot more interesting than his current routine.

Schuester ignored him anytime he saw him. It was like he couldn't handle seeing the failure his student had become.

Puck snorted. You couldn't go to college or get a job on words of encouragement. No bullshited pep talks could have helped him be somebody.

The light was on his living room when he finally strolled up the driveway. That was strange because it was two in the morning, and his ma should have been asleep. His sister better not have brought a boy over.

Once that thought entered his head, there was no stopping him from charging through the door.

Thankfully he didn't find his sister hooking up with a boy. (Something he feared since she had started high school earlier in the year.) His ma sat on the couch, sobbing in her hands.

If there was one thing Puck hated, it was his ma crying. It was the worst thing he would ever see in his life.

"Ma, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Noah! I have horrible news," his ma sobbed harder.

"What? Is Sarah okay?" Puck asked desperately.

"No. Carol Hudson called. Honey, Finn is dead," she wailed.

Pick stumbled back, tripping over the edge of the rug and hitting the wall. Finn was dead, Finn was dead. The words continued to chant in his heads.

"He was shot in Afghanistan. Carol is trying to get everyone from that old Glee Club of yours to come back for the funeral. Oh Noah, it's so terrible,"

Puck slid to the floor. The entire old Glee Club? Ha, like they ever cared about Finn. They didn't spend time with his mom and step-dad. They didn't talk to him over skype. All of them had gone their separate ways and forgot about him.

He hated them, and he didn't want to see them. They could all rot in their little perfect lives for all he cared. None of them, except for Sam, had spoken to him since graduation. Not even a text message.

That whole New Directions is a family thing? Bull.

/

**Sam**

It was six in the morning, and he was forced to slug through the snow to open the damn comic bookstore. Why the owner couldn't have gotten off his lazy ass to do it, he didn't know. Apparently it had to fall to the only other worker in the store: Sam.

Slush covered the entrance of the shop, almost making him trip. He let out a whispered curse at no one in particular. It wasn't like there was anyone around to hear him anyway. Most of the stores around there didn't open for another two hours. Only Bill's Comics opened at the ungodly hour of six.

One hand still firmly holding onto his coffee, he opened the door and turned on the lights. One by one the overhead lights flickered on revealing row after row of comic books on shelves. They had over a thousand titles, as the poster outside so proudly declared.

That was probably what he liked most of all about his job, the comics. Sam could just pick a few out, sit on the stool behind the counter and read through them. The cash register wasn't that hard to use now that he had practice, so it only took about five minutes to ring a customer up.

If someone had told him five years ago that he would be spending the entirety of his post-high school career reading comics, he would have cheered. That was the dream job wasn't it? Having nothing to do but read a new adventure each day.

If only it really was all it was cracked up to be. Now that he thought about it, drawing comics was what he really should have dreamed of. That way he could have taken those art classes in high school and attempt to get a scholarship to an art school. He could have learned the drawing skills needed for a good "knowledge foundation" as all the colleges put it.

It was too late for him now. There weren't any art classes for twenty year olds in Kentucky. Sam would just have to suffer through being a minimum wage worker at the only comic bookstore in town.

The memory of his embarrassment when Rachel handed him a dollar that one time, stopped him from going back to the strip joint. There was no way he would ever go through anything similar to that moment again.

For all the ambition and confidence he had managed to build in New Directions, he didn't put it to any use. That was the saddest part, he thought as he went around the counter.

All the trouble everyone had gone through to assure him he would have an awesome future, was a waste. Look at him.

Sam placed his coffee down and leaned against the glass counter where the rarest comics were put on display. Forget being a Lima Loser, he was a Kentucky Loser. Which was slightly worse because he didn't have many friends around the place. How could he? He spent his prime years in a different state.

Beep.

Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. He had gotten a text message from Puck. That wasn't that strange, he and Puck texted on a regular basis. The only two to stay in contact with each other-for longer than a skype call- since graduation.

**Did anyone call you?**

Sam frowned at the message. What could he possibly mean? It wasn't like his phone was ringing off the hook with people they both knew.

**Did who call me? **

Seconds later his phone beeped again.

**Shit. I can't call man, I'm at a funeral home with Burt and Carol. Finn is dead. He got shot in Afghanistan. Funeral is Friday. **

The phone hit the floor. Sam dropped it in shock. Finn had gotten shot...was killed...and his funeral was Friday. What the fuck?

Puck had told him last week that Finn was doing good. How could that have happened...well he knew the how. The better question was why. Finn was a great guy, a really great guy. He didn't deserve to die that young.

Shit. He needed to call his boss. He was going to head to Lima tonight, there was no way around it. Burt and Carol would need all the support they could get and with Kurt in New York... They probably would need a go to guy to run errands.

Yeah, he need to get at least a week off. Hopefully two so he could stick around afterwards.

/

**Santana**

In slow sensual movements, she turned around. Managing to keep the huge feather headdress on her hair. The thing weighed a ton and could snap a neck if not worn correctly.

The crowd was cheering far too loudly for the slow ballad the singer was belting out. Then again it was Vegas, the land of the drunk and the home of the wild. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually knew what the singer was going on about. Some sappy love story if Santana put her money on it.

After two years of working the circuit, she had learned how to block out the music and crowds. Listening to similar woeful tales and horrible pop songs quickly got tiring after the first month. Most of the dancers were probably making to do lists for their weeks in their mind.

You didn't learn that kind of things through a 'Vegas Dancer Documentary' on ABC. People saw what they wanted to see, dumb low class girls whose only talent was forming a kickline.

While Santana considering herself smart and high class, she could easily fit into that stereotype. The former high school cheerleader who was lost after graduation. Came to Vegas to drown her sorrows, only to get caught up in to much.

When she threw her left hand in the air, the diamond ring on the infamous ring finger glittered. Vegas wedding, the ultimate cliche. Got drunk while flirting with a thirty year old casino owner, only to wake up with a new last name. Hey, least it got her a job and a lot of cash.

There were worse futures she could have pictured for herself than the one she was living. Hell, she could have ended up Berry's manager up in New York. Pft like that would ever happen.

The music finally stopped, and Santana posed. The bright spotlights that used to blind her now hardly affected her vision. Delighted ladies who pictured themselves on stage and perverted men who pictures the dancers off stage all clapped.

Now she knew better than to make eye contact with them. That would only lead to a hasty escape when someone got to handsy later when she walked the floor. Apparently looking at a man, equalled screaming I want you in Vegas.

Hell, at least she was performing. That had been her dream after all to make it big on stage, to perform in front of a crowd of thousands. Just like the one applauding her right now. Technically her dream had come true, it just had taken a real big hit from reality.

Bryan Ryan had been right all those years ago. Having a career in music, wasn't easy. It was impossible even. If they had just taken what he said to heart then, maybe she wouldn't have had her heart sucked out of her now.

Eventually she was able to strut off the stage to the dressing rooms. One of the newer dancers, bumped into her almost making her trip.

"Watch where your going, estupida!" Santana cussed.

She hated new dancers, they were way too arrogant. They thought they had gotten lucky with the best job in the world. That happy glow would disappear in a week, every older dancer knew that. It was one of the more entertaining aspects of the job, watching their dreams break.

Santana still hadn't lost her love of watching people suffer.

"Grey, phone for you!"

Santana shuffled and shoved past the other dancers. She still hadn't gotten used to her last name. Lopez, fit her better. Not much she could do about it now though, maybe two years earlier she could have. Now though, her legal name was Santana Grey.

She pulled the phone out of the manager's hand with a roll of her eyes.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, this is Santana,"

"Wait, who is this?"

"Finn's mom? Why are you calling me?"

"...I'm sorry,"

"Yeah, I'll be there,"

"Bye,"

Santana hung up the phone feeling guilty. She had snarked at a woman calling about her son's death. God, when had she gotten this bitchy? Even during her freshman and sophomore year, she wouldn't have been that heartless.

Glee Club had at least made her more pleasant. What had happened to that progress? Oh yeah, the real world. New Directions had been Disneyland compared to what awaited her after graduation. You didn't keep in touch with your high school friends and you didn't get cheesy pep talks from your boss.

She blamed Schuester for making her think that she could do anything. One look at her now, and maybe the teacher would change his speeches. There was no such thing as a bright future.

Well now she at least had an excuse for now performing for the show, she had a funeral to go to.

God damn it, was she crying?

/

_It was sad that Carol could only get a hold of a few of us. Then again maybe there was a reason why we were the only ones. After all everything happens for a reason. There must have been a reason for why it was the five of us that left our lives behind for a funeral._

_Either way, in the end, it was a good thing we did decide to go the funeral. Our lives changed by that one decision. _

_The story of New Directions and what happened to it's alumni has been told many times. It's been made into books, movies, and TV documentaries. It's even in discussion for, ironically enough, a Broadway show. _

_Everyone wants to hear about the horrible misfortune that fell upon this high school Glee Club. They want to hear about the true miseries of a disappointing post high-school life. _

_I know they want to make fun of us, that's why the story got out in the first place. That's why it went viral. I know that most of the adaptions of how we got to that point are wrong. _

_I have been nominated to write the true story down. The real history of the little glee club from Ohio, the real story of redemption. _

_I hope you decide to learn the truth. _

_That not every future is bright. _

/

Author's Note: There you go. I hope you like the premise of it. I'm not counting Kurt as part of the main five, but he will obviously be present. I was originally going to write about all the New Directions, but that would be too many characters to write about.

Review, favorite, and follow please.


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